Project Title Predictors of Freshmen Engineering Students’ Report of Cheating
Department
Psychological Science
Major
Psychological Science
Research Advisor
Henslee, Amber M.
Advisor's Department
Psychological Science
Abstract
Unethical behavior among students is a concern within all academic disciplines, including the STEM fields. The literature describes demographic variables of students who exhibit academically dishonest behaviors but is limited by specific samples. We investigated the probability of freshmen engineering students’ report of cheating based upon individual predictor variables including perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes toward academic integrity. Participants rated themselves on five quantitative perception measures: self-perceived ethicalness (E), cheating prevalence (CP), plagiarism prevalence (PP), knowledge of consequences (KC), and how much they cared about academic integrity (C), as well as whether the participant had previous training or education about academic integrity (no training; NT). Eighty percent of participants reported that they had never cheated. Almost 93% had completed previous academic integrity training. Freshmen engineering students were more likely to report cheating with decreased self-perceived ethicalness and decreased perceived prevalence of plagiarism. These results could inform academic dishonesty prevention efforts aimed at challenging students’ perceptions and behaviors.
Biography
Sara Johnson is a second-year psychology student at S&T. She began working with Dr. Henslee in 2017 and looks forward to pursuing a career in clinical psychology.
Research Category
Social Sciences
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Award
Social science poster session, Second place
Location
Upper Atrium
Presentation Date
17 Apr 2018, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Project Title Predictors of Freshmen Engineering Students’ Report of Cheating
Upper Atrium
Unethical behavior among students is a concern within all academic disciplines, including the STEM fields. The literature describes demographic variables of students who exhibit academically dishonest behaviors but is limited by specific samples. We investigated the probability of freshmen engineering students’ report of cheating based upon individual predictor variables including perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes toward academic integrity. Participants rated themselves on five quantitative perception measures: self-perceived ethicalness (E), cheating prevalence (CP), plagiarism prevalence (PP), knowledge of consequences (KC), and how much they cared about academic integrity (C), as well as whether the participant had previous training or education about academic integrity (no training; NT). Eighty percent of participants reported that they had never cheated. Almost 93% had completed previous academic integrity training. Freshmen engineering students were more likely to report cheating with decreased self-perceived ethicalness and decreased perceived prevalence of plagiarism. These results could inform academic dishonesty prevention efforts aimed at challenging students’ perceptions and behaviors.
